Is it me, or is there nothing to watch anymore?

Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated? I aggressively loved that line back in the day, as a teen obsessed with rock’n’roll. It’s how John Lydon ended the last ever Sex Pistols gig in January 1978, putting an end to the whole charade. It made me feel edgy, to look at whole swathes of society and tell myself that only I could see that everyone was being played.

I’ve mostly managed to train myself out of this constant, reflexive cynicism since then. I think it’s good and quietly revolutionary to see the best in people and things, and at least try to assume that you’re not being conned, and everyone isn’t out there to try and get you. Always either being on your guard or trying to stand just outside of society is quite corrosive to the soul, it turns out.

Still, there are times when you just can’t help but feel like there’s you, right where you’re standing, and there’s The Man, endlessly trying to come up with ways in which to mess with you and make your life worse, all in exchange for a few extra quid to line his pockets with.

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What Malcolm in the Middle understands perfectly about Trump’s America

Ian Winwood

In my own case, I would say that I am at my most nihilistic every Sunday night, as I try to find something to watch while doing my weekly manicure or, more broadly, whenever I need a new TV series to watch. These are the times when I look at the world and I feel the need to hiss like a cat, and start wondering if the teenage commie in me maybe had more of a point than I’d care to admit.

As you may have noticed, there is nothing to watch anymore. Somehow there are around a hundred different streaming services, all of which cost a non-negligible amount of money every month, and all those streaming services licence countless shows and films and make countless other shows and films in-house, and yet there is nothing to watch.

I subscribe to two of the major streamers and have not-wholly-kosher ways in which to gain access to other pieces of media but still, on Sundays and when it’s time for me to find a new show, I search for hours and hours and often come up empty-handed. I suppose you could argue that the sheer amount of choice is the problem, and we were never meant to have this much media at our fingertips.

I would agree with you – partially – then tell you to look closer. Like shops that dazzle you with colours and sounds and the sheer amount of product on offer, streamers often bank on quantity overpowering everything else. The moment you take a closer look, the whole edifice crumbles.

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Babies will break your heart. You must watch it anyway

Eleanor Longman-Rood

Really, I can’t count the number of times I’ve googled a movie, having found my interest piqued by its interesting and sometimes illustrious cast, only to find every review online explaining that it was about as interesting as watching already dry paint exist in the world.

Even worse are the TV shows. For a while, whenever Netflix or Disney or whoever else would launch a glossy new series, I’d jump on it and binge it all like everyone else. Within weeks, I’d then find myself crestfallen, reading the news that the studio had decided to nix the entire thing even though the last season had ended on a whopper of a cliffhanger. There rarely was any rhyme or reason to it, at least from the outside, making it wholly maddening.

What this means in practice is that…I just don’t really, meaningfully stream things anymore. Well, I do, kind of, but I’ve had to develop some stringent rules.

First: I’ll only watch TV shows which have already ended, as I no longer trust streamers not to cancel shows or end up half-arseing them for the last few seasons. Second: I will, on occasion, make an exception for one-season shows, as at least I know that the story will be self-contained.

Third: I will read multiple articles about shows or movies before starting them – trying hard to avoid spoilers – as I no longer trust studios not to merely hand us slop. Fourth: I will often avoid long-running shows, as I worry they’ll disappear from the platform before I’m done with them.